Erebus

views updated May 11 2018

Erebus in Greek mythology, the primeval god of darkness, son of Chaos; also taken as the proper name of a dark region between Earth and Hades, and as such a type of a place of blackness and gloom.

Erebus was also the name of one of the two ships of Sir James Ross's expedition to the Antarctic in 1838 (the other was called Terror); Mount Erebus, a volcanic peak on Ross Island, Antarctica, the world's most southerly active volcano, is named for it.